Sergeant John H. Cook

John H. Cook was born in London in 1840 and enlisted at Quincy, Illinois, in August 1862 as a sergeant in Company A of the 119th Illinois Infantry. At Pleasant Hill on April 9, 1864, he left a clerk's post with the brigade quartermaster, rejoined his company and, acting as first lieutenant, led the line toward the charging enemy. The Medal of Honor was not awarded until September 19, 1890, more than twenty-six years later. He mustered out with the regiment in June 1865 and died in New York City in 1916, buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mansfield State Historic Site — 14 mi
  A 1957 museum and three-quarter-mile trail on the ground where Confederate troops broke a Union line on April 8, 1864, in a park begun by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
• Los Adaes State Historic Site — 17 mi
  The Spanish presidio that was the capital of Texas from 1729 to 1770, some 15 miles from French Natchitoches, now an archaeological site where Native pottery is the most abundant find.
• Fort Jesup State Historic Site — 18 mi
  The 1822 army post Zachary Taylor built to hold the Neutral Ground between Louisiana and Spanish Texas, with the one surviving kitchen, a reconstructed officers' quarters and a museum open Friday to Sunday.
• North Toledo Bend State Park — 23 mi
  A 900-acre park on the Louisiana shore of the 186,000-acre Toledo Bend Reservoir, with trails, disc golf and cabins, near the flooded sites of Pine Flat and other Sabine Parish communities.

More markers nearby

• Leutenant General Richard Taylor — steps away
• Dog Trot House — steps away
• Headquarters Department of the Gulf / Headquarters Trans-Mississippi Dept. — 0.3 mi
• The Old Cistern — 0.3 mi